Israel boycott

Students at Edinburgh University have voted overwhelmingly in favour of a boycott of Israeli goods.

On Monday, around 270 backed a boycott motion with only 20 voting against it. Israeli products will not be sold in student union shops, and they will encourage suppliers to stop using Israeli products.

If some senior university staff appear to lack a sense of propriety, the members of Edinburgh's student union who voted for a boycott of Israeli goods appear, to be blunt, to be simply idiots. So they want to boycott Israeli goods? Let them.

Pro-Palestinian campaigners are planning to disrupt a conference on Israeli music at SOAS which they say is "endorsed by the Israeli government" - although the organisers have in fact rejected Israeli funding.

Organisers turned down a grant from the British Israeli Arts Training Scheme, after deciding they did not want political connections with the conference.

The UK chairman of Stand With Us has called for British supporters of Israel to take part in Buy Israeli Goods Day on March 30, to combat a day of action called internationally by anti-Israeli boycotters.

British Quakers are considering "all options" after a debate on boycotting Israeli settlement goods.

Marigold Bentley, assistant general secretary of Quaker Peace and Social Witness said all boycotts and campaigns were currently being considered.

Quakers in Ramallah have called for the organisation to commit to boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel, at the national "Meeting for Sufferings" last week with 150 British Quaker representatives.

Ms Bentley said: "We have discussed sanctions in the past, in the cases of Iraq and Zimbabwe; we are a peace movement.